1. Field of the Invention
In one aspect, the invention relates to a business method for optimally determining appropriate ergonomics of occupants of a workspace including a metric determined from personal-, environmental- and task-related attributes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Ergonomics have become an increasingly important concern in several industries and fields of endeavor. These industries include, but are not necessarily limited to, office furniture (including the wholesale and retail sale thereof), interior design, product identification and design, manufacturing equipment sale and design (both internal and “lean” manufacturing), and safety audit organizations which assess risk and audit compliance to ensure a safe working environment. Ergonomics are also important in the insurance industry in assessing risk, providing guidelines and auditing compliance with generally-accepted or industry-mandated policies.
Currently there are no standard ergonomics methods to evaluate the person (especially groups of people), their particular work-related task, and their environment (work station, assembly station, etc.). Although there exist various methods by which the ergonomics of one subset of the above categories are used, there are no integrated methods of assessing the ergonomics of a work-related environment. In addition, while an ergonomist might be able to quantify each of the above-identified categories (i.e., person, task and environment), it has not been done in a manner which can quantifiably define a risk in the interaction of those variables, and which can combine the quantified output with known incident rates and associated costs to provide information to determine what sort of return on investment (ROI) or increase in productivity a company might realize from an improvement in ergonomics.
The measurement of ergonomics has been attempted but has not yielded satisfactory results. Some companies have invested in methods to gather anthropometrical data on individual employees but this must be done on a person-by-person basis. Other companies have tried to evaluate the tasks each employee performs to obtain an estimate on the impact on an employee's ergonomics. These task evaluation tools vary in sophistication and complexity. Companies, which create the work environment (i.e. furniture, assembly equipment, etc.), have relied primarily on aesthetic differentiation and feature and functional differentiation. Some companies, as well as the Business & Institutional Furniture Manufacturer's Association (BIFMA), have developed individual ergonomic standards which have contributed to the design of individual ergonomic products.
These prior art ergonomics estimation tools have been “single-user” solutions at best. These tools have not focused on acquiring data on large groups of people and provide little in the way of proactive solutions focused on, company-based populations. In addition, most of these solutions are difficult to duplicate, require expertise to utilize, and are created and empowered by a small group of individuals within small populations focused on reactive intervention, e.g., the ergonomics solutions are implemented after a work-related or repetitive stress injury.
There is a general lack of integrated and systemic solutions that consider the person, their task, and their environment. ROI models have been viewed as either incomplete or lacking in sophistication. With regard to the determination of an ergonomics-related solution to personal or anthropometrical data on individuals in the workspace, this data has typically involved the comprehensive measurement of many individuals in the workspace or at least those individuals whose health needs are being addressed. The measurements are detailed, invasive and time consuming. A simpler, more intuitive, user-friendly system of inputting anthropometrical data is needed. In the past, broad-based data collection has been performed to provide statistical curves and probability information for general population anthropometric distribution. These broad-based methods are time-consuming. They do not meet individual employee needs, and it is often prohibitively expensive to capture a sufficiently large population sample to comprise a meaningful database.
With respect to the office furniture industry, ergonomics are an important consideration. Employees working in a particular workspace can suffer repetitive stress injuries and general discomfort when operating in an ergonomically-unbalanced environment. This can result in additional costs to a company, such as with lost workdays, lower productivity, workers' compensation claims and the like. It is desirable for companies to assess their ergonomics with respect to their office furniture, in their interior design and sale/purchase of furniture, identifying products which will result in better ergonomics, assessing corporate risks and managing safety, as well as in up-front product design. In addition to ensuring the optimal ergonomics of a company's workforce, the office furniture industry needs to differentiate its sales process and techniques as an opportunity to gain market share, create new market opportunities, and decrease the pressure on primarily using discounts to sell product. There is a growing need to assure a safe working environment in the office setting.
It is not known to define an ROI based on providing a safer work environment and productivity improvements gained through reducing fatigue within the office environment, and to provide a customer purchasing office furniture options based on that ROI data. In addition, once a company makes an office furniture purchasing decision, there is no current system to provide installation information on how to assure that an individual or a user group implements the ergonomically-based purchasing decisions with respect to settings and comfort positioning of the purchased office furniture.
It is also difficult to identify different ergonomic settings for a product. Many commercially-available office furniture products (see, e.g., the Aeron chair available from Herman Miller, Inc. and the Leap chair available from Steelcase) have numerous adjustments and settings to make their chairs fit a wide variety of users. However, companies purchasing these items have no criteria to determine whether the office furniture is an ergonomic fit for each user in the workspace. Further, there is no known user-friendly system proving customer safety and risk management teams the ability to audit and assure their employees are utilizing safe working habits (e.g., configuring their workspace to an optimal ergonomic fit). Rather, employees often simply configure a workspace to their personal, subjective preferences without regard to optimal ergonomics because employees typically do not know when their environment is ergonomically correct. This personal configuration dynamic is typically a result of a lack of feedback to office furniture manufacturers to guide product design to fill product niches based on data relevant to optimal workplace ergonomics. And, there is currently no industry-accepted system to validate the ergonomic claims of a product design.
Office furniture providers have tried to solve these problems by developing furniture standards (e.g., BIFMA Standards), and other less-accepted standards unique to a particular office furniture manufacturer. Companies have developed individual ergonomic products. Facilities teams have developed product evaluation and selection teams and processes to attempt to provide the best ergonomic fit for their workplace.
However, these attempts have not been pragmatic or useful. Most solutions are difficult to duplicate, require expertise to utilize, can conflict with other available solutions, and are created and empowered by a small group of individuals within small populations focused on reactive intervention (i.e., typically only after lost workdays and reduced productivity). There is no user-friendly approach, or known approaches are subjective to a particular workplace. Attempts to determine or model a customers ROI on an office furniture purchase have been viewed as either incomplete or lacking in sophistication and accuracy. Many companies avoid productivity-measurement issues that are product- or workstation-driven and ergonomic solutions have not been validated by outside entities to determine their validity or usefulness.
The same issues are prevalent in the office furniture retail industry. The office furniture retail sales industry (i.e. Staples, Office Max, etc.) needs to differentiate its sales process and techniques as an opportunity to gain market share and create new market opportunities. In addition, there is a growing need to assure a safe working environment in the home office setting due to the increased prominence of telecommuting and home-based businesses. There are even less options available to retail purchasers to define an ROI-based model to provide a safer work environment and for the retail sales outlet to provide to the customer purchase options based on that data. It is not known to define productivity improvement data gained through reducing fatigue within the home office environment, and to provide a purchasing customer equipment options based on that data. There is no known system to provide installation information on how to assure that the buyer implements ergonomic-based purchasing decisions. There is no known user-friendly system to easily identify different ergonomic settings for a product and to easily communicate those settings to a purchasing consumer (who may purchase a wide variety of products from different manufacturers). Companies have developed individual ergonomic products but they do not effectively communicate appropriate ergonomic settings to the consumer.
The same issues apply to other environments as well, such as a manufacturing workplace. No known technology or system exists to predict productivity improvements or risk reduction in the manufacturing environment based on ergonomic data of both the person performing tasks, the task, as well as the environment in which the task is performed. There is a growing need to assure a safe working environment in the manufacturing arena, which focuses on ergonomics and safe workplace design.
There is no known system to provide equipment installation information on how to assure that individual or user group implements any ergonomic-based purchasing decisions. There are no known user-friendly systems to be used by process designers, both internal and external to the manufacturer, to systematically consider optimizing the person(s), the task (s), and the environment. There is no known user-friendly system to easily identify different ergonomic settings for a product. There is no known user-friendly system providing customer safety and risk management teams the ability to audit and assure their employees are utilizing safe working habits. Further, there is no closed loop feedback system to guide product design to fill product niches based on ergonomic data identified in the workplace.
Providers of manufacturing equipment have attempted to develop individual ergonomic products for the manufacturing environment. Engineers have developed product evaluation and selection teams and processes as well as manufacturing task evaluation processes. Consultants have provided reactive intervention for specific individuals or settings (typically following injury or a period of reduced productivity). These past attempts have typically focused on single-user and company-based approaches.
These past attempted solutions are difficult to duplicate, require expertise to utilize, and are created and empowered by a small group of individuals within small populations focused on reactive intervention. There is no known user-friendly approach. The solutions exist, but are single-user solutions, typically subjectively designed for a particular workplace. Most companies avoid productivity-measurement issues that are product driven and any ergonomic solutions that have not been validated by outside entities.
These issues also exist in companies which desire to have so-called “safety audits” performed in their work environment (regardless of the particular field of endeavor of the company). Outside safety audit organizations as well as productivity-enhancement groups typically perform these audits to assess risk and audit compliance to attempt to ensure a safe working environment. These organizations include corporate risk and safety management groups, consultants to companies, governmental risk and safety management agencies, and labor unions.
Currently there are no known standard ergonomics methods to evaluate the person (especially groups of people), the task, and the environment (work station, assembly station, etc.), to combine those in a method that quantifiably defines the risk the interaction of those variables, and combines the output with known incident rates and associated costs to provide an associated dollar value for deviation from the optimum (or combines the output with known fatigue factors to predict any impact on productivity).
In order to attempt to provide more accurate and useful safety audits, some organizations have invested in methods to gather anthropometrical data on individual employees. A number of task evaluation tools exist, which vary in sophistication and complexity. Single-user solutions exist, which have not focused on acquiring data on groups of people, and provide little in the way of proactive solutions focused on company-based populations.
Most solutions are difficult to duplicate, require expertise to utilize, and are created and empowered by a small group of individuals within small populations focused on reactive intervention. There is a general lack of integrated solutions, which consider the person, task, and environment. ROI models have been viewed as either incomplete or lacking in sophistication. Finally, most companies avoid productivity-measurement issues that are product or workstation driven.